


Second City

by inlovewithnight



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: F/F, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 08:30:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16929897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: One crime-free and well-behaved weekend per year was all Lou asked for, besides Debbie’s undying love and devotion and all that. Easy.





	Second City

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lorelei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorelei/gifts).



There was a room waiting at the Peninsula Hotel when Debbie got to Chicago, a fact she was informed of by the driver waiting at the airport holding a sign with her name on it. Not her actual name; she preferred not to advertise where Deborah Ocean was on any given day. It was one of her aliases that she had only ever used while working with Lou. It was a nice touch. It made her smile the whole ride to the Peninsula.

A quick Google check confirmed that the Peninsula was the most expensive hotel in Chicago. Lou was being very nice about this weekend, and in fact, if it had been anyone _but_ Lou, Debbie would have considered it _suspiciously_ nice. She could accept that Lou just knew her this well. She liked fancy things. She liked to be pampered. She liked stealing expensive hotel-room souvenirs. It was what it was.

The room was also under her alias, and ready when she arrived, even though that was an hour before check-in. Lou had thought of everything, including how to keep Debbie from getting bored and scamming the rich people in the lobby and the restaurant. It was a little bit mean, honestly, but Debbie couldn’t complain. This was Lou’s weekend, to arrange how she wanted, and Debbie had agreed, like she agreed every year, that she would behave. One crime-free and well-behaved weekend per year was all Lou asked for, besides Debbie’s undying love and devotion and all that. Easy.

Once upstairs, she changed out of her traveling clothes, enjoyed the ridiculous shower, and cozied up in a robe, lounging in one of the suite’s four overstuffed armchairs and flipping through the options on TV. There wasn’t much to choose from. She settled on an old black and white movie and left it running for background noise while she circled the rooms and tried to decide what things she would be taking with her when they left.

The door opened an hour later, when she was completely bored with that game and the lady-who-lunches-and-not-much-else performance. She was sprawled spread-eagled on the bed, the robe rucked up at odd angles on all four limbs, staring at the ceiling and not quite able to drop off.

Lou stopped in the bedroom doorway, studying her. “This is more or less what I expected, I can’t lie.”

Debbie flipped her off and continued studying the ceiling. “I think there used to be a mirror here, over the bed, and they just painted it over when they decided to go classy. Come look.”

“There was never a mirror over the bed.” Lou dropped her bag by the window and came over to sit on the edge of the mattress, pulling one leg up to undo the buckles on her boots. “Help me with these.”

“You’ve got it, I can tell.” Debbie rubbed one leg against the small of Lou’s back. “How were the salt flats?”

“Mm. They were good. I got some good times down. Next year I think I’m going to bring two different bikes, soup them up differently and see which one does…” She trailed off, glancing down at Debbie’s face. “You don’t care.”

“I care that you care.”

“Mm-hmm.” Lou turned her attention to the other boot. “It went well.”

“How much did you scam them out of?”

“I wasn’t there to run a scam, Deb. I really just wanted to test my bike.”

“Oh.” Debbie stared at the ceiling again. “Really?”

“Really.” Lou sighed and flopped backward, stretching her legs out in front of her. “Oh, that feels good.”

Debbie sat up and moved down the bed to where she could tug Lou’s head into her lap. “I had a good couple of months, too.”

“Yeah?” Lou smiled up at her. “What did you do?”

“Well.” Debbie cocked her head to the side and pretended to think. “I stole a horse.”

“An entire horse?”

Debbie beamed. “The whole thing.”

“What did you do with it? I can’t imagine they let you keep that at the Four Seasons.”

“Ha. I found a llama farm, about twenty miles away. I took it there and had them just turn it out with the llamas. Nobody looked there.”

Lou nodded slowly, her eyes half-closed, like a big sleepy cat. “And why did you steal the horse?”

“For the insurance payout.”

“You have enough money to last forever, Deb, you know that.”

“I do. Yes.” She slowly combed her fingers through Lou’s hair. “But I hate being bored.”

Lou smiled again. “I know. I like that about you.”

**

They slept in late the next morning, then called down for room service and a newspaper. Debbie made her way through bacon, eggs, and toast while Lou studied the weekend supplement of events going on around the city. 

“Well, we have some options,” she said, reaching for the tray and swirling a spoon through her yogurt parfait. “There’s a ballet—”

“I didn’t pack for that,” Debbie said.

“Mm, as if you’d turn down an excuse to go shopping… Symphony?”

“Eh.” Debbie wiggled her fork in the classic maybe-maybe-not pattern. “Save that for tomorrow night, maybe?”

“Fair.” Lou turned a page, sucking her spoon clean before reading off another item. “Skewing quite a bit younger… Fall Out Boy is performing. You don’t hate them.”

Debbie frowned. “Which ones are they?”

“Short. Loud. Four of them.” Lou brushed her hair back off her forehead. “I think you called them muppets.”

“Muppets? No.” Debbie put her plate down, trying to think of any band she had ever considered muppets. “I don’t think that’s right.” She looked over Lou’s shoulder at the paper. “Oh. _Hobbits_. They’re short.’

“Ohh.” Lou leaned in to look at the picture, too, resting her head against Debbie’s. “Of course, hobbits. How could I miss that one?”

Debbie carefully reached over and took the parfait from Lou’s hand, setting it back on the tray. “What if we worried about this later, and did something else right now?”

Lou blinked at her. “Like eating breakfast?”

“No.” Debbie shook her head, trying on her best seductive smile. “Like eating me.”

Lou took careful hold of Debbie’s wrists, rubbing her thumbs over the delicate skin. “Try it again, as yourself, not like I’m a mark.”

“Sorry.” Debbie tilted her head back for a moment, picturing hitting a reset button in her head, washing away all the layers of cons and leaving only her actual self behind. Deborah Ocean, alone and unadorned. She was never quite sure how she felt about that self, about Deborah-qua-Deborah. She did her best not to spend a lot of time as her when she wasn’t with Lou.

But Lou loved her, and that meant a lot.

She dropped her chin again, looking into Lou’s eyes. “Hey,” she said quietly, letting Lou meet her gaze and search it, letting Lou look right into her heart. “Here I am.”

Lou smiled and pulled her in for a kiss. “There you are.”

**

They decided against the Fall Out Boy show, on the grounds that everyone would assume they were someone’s moms, and also that the idea of hobbit-muppets playing music was impossible to take seriously.

The newspaper, unfortunately, didn’t survive their diversionary activities; Debbie hadn’t taken the breakfast tray off the bed, and they ended up dumping the remains of Lou’s parfait and an entire carafe of orange juice across both newspaper and bedding.

Once dressed and decamped to a café down the street while housekeeping put things back in order (with two $100 bills and a post-it reading “Union!” waiting for them on the pillows; Debbie’s mother had instilled in her a deep belief in the importance of generous tipping and organized labor), Lou brought up the same schedule on the newspaper’s website. 

“Done with arts and culture,” she said firmly. “Let’s take a look at other options.”

Debbie swung her feet up on the edge of Lou’s chair, pressed up to her thigh. “Do they have axe-throwing halls here?”

“That’s Canadian, Deb.” Lou scrolled through the page. “And you would be extremely dangerous at axe-throwing.”

“Hmm.” She wiggled her feet, trying to get Lou to look at her. “You would be great at it.”

“I _am_ great at it.” Lou flashed her a quick smile. “Take your feet off the chair, you weren’t raised in a barn.”

Debbie sighed and dropped her feet back to the floor. “I would say that you’re no fun today, but—”

“But I was just a _lot_ of fun, I know, I was there.” Lou smirked down at her phone and then raised her eyebrows. “What about a hockey game?”

Debbie blinked. “Hockey? With the ice and the sticks and the big guys with no teeth?”

“That’s the one.”

Debbie thought about it. “I guess. Okay. Sports are fun. You like sports. I like some sports.”

“I mostly like racing sports.” Lou tapped at her phone, bringing up the page to buy tickets. “But hockey does have a certain aesthetic to it.”

“And the players are pretty rich, right?” Debbie brightened. “We could rob the locker room.”

“Deb.”

“What? They’re men, and they’re professional athletes, there must be some bad ones in there who deserve to be robbed.”

“Just this one weekend of no crime, all right? Just once a year.” Lou brushed her hair back from her forehead and looked at Debbie seriously. “Next time we meet up, I promise, it will be in Monte Carlo and you can steal from everyone you want.”

Debbie grinned and tore a piece off her chocolate croissant, then popped it into her mouth. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”

“Absolutely.” Lou turned her attention back to her phone. “As long as she behaves first, to earn it.”

**

They made it through the hockey game without robbing anyone, which Debbie considered an accomplishment worth rewarding both in the future and right now, on the spot. Specifically, in the bathroom of the very nice bar near the arena where they went for drinks afterward.

Bathroom hookups were Lou’s weakness. Debbie got her reward, pushed up against the bathroom wall, fingers wrapped around the top of the stall and holding on for her life while Lou breathed hot and damp against her ear and drove three fingers up into her. 

Back at the hotel, they found a return post-it from the maid staff, with smiley faces and “Union! Union! Union!” written on it. A perfect cap for the day, before they burrowed down in the ridiculous cloud-like blankets and went to sleep.

**

The next day was their last on this particular date weekend, and Debbie was determined to not only enjoy it properly, but behave herself so Lou could enjoy it, too. That meant waking Lou up very sweetly, with kisses and licks and gentle little touches, and spending an hour of slow lazy sex before they made it out of bed. 

Then brunch in the Peninsula’s restaurant, indulging themselves in dishes that heavily featured references to crème anglaise. Lou looked like the world’s most satisfied cat, eyes half-closed and mouth curved in bliss, savoring her meal. Debbie asked the waiter to keep them both topped up with endless champagne. “We’re celebrating,” she explained, hooking her ankle with Lou’s under the table. “We’ve been together for a hundred years.”

The waiter took that in stride, filling their glasses and vanishing again. Lou reached across the table and tugged at Debbie’s wrist until she leaned in closer. “A hundred years, hmm? Do you want him to think we’re vampires?”

“Witches.” Debbie grinned at her and swiped a fingerful of crème anglaise from her plate. “Witches have all the fun.”

After breakfast they walked the mile to Millennium Park to see the Cloud Gate sculpture, shimmering metal in the shape of a giant kidney bean standing out on a plaza, reflecting the sky. “It’s smaller than I expected,” Lou said after a moment. “Beautiful. But smaller than I expected.”

Debbie walked a slow circle around it, studying how the clouds and sunlight reflected off the metal. “This is a good size, though. You could fit it into a truck.”

“Deborah.”

“Not that I’m going to, I’m just saying.” She shoved her hands into her pockets and smiled at Lou. “Maybe as an anniversary present, though.”

“The best anniversary present you can give me is _not_ being arrested again.” Lou held out her hand. “Come on. Let’s walk a bit more, I’m restless.”

Neither of them were wearing shoes particularly meant for walking, but they managed, making their way in a meandering pattern through the streets. Debbie stopped for hot chocolate from a vendor on another plaza, and Lou bought a pair of red mittens from a craft market set up nearby.

“Handmade,” she said, slipping them on and spreading out her fingers, watching the stretch of the knitting. “More precious than Prada.”

“I don’t know about _that_.” Debbie hooked her arm through Lou’s and started them walking again. “But they’re very cute, and I can tell they make you happy.”

“All of this makes me happy.” Lou tipped her head back to look up at the sky. “It’s been a very nice date weekend.”

“I’m glad.”

“Thank you for indulging me in this.” Lou eased her arm free of Debbie’s and took Debbie’s hand in hers instead. “It means a lot.”

“I know it does. That’s why I do it.”

Lou laughed softly, then paused as Debbie pulled her phone out of her pocket with her free hand and consulted something. “Are we missing an appointment?”

“Haven’t missed it yet. But we need to…” Debbie frowned and looked up at the street signs, clicking her tongue. “Two blocks that way. C’mon.”

“You didn’t tell me you’d made more plans.” Lou came along easily, rubbing her thumb over the back of Debbie’s hands through the yarn. “Is this a good surprise?”

“Well, I think so, or I wouldn’t have set it up. We’ll have to see what you think.” Debbie paused at the next corner and checked her phone again, then smiled and hurried halfway down the block to an unassuming storefront promising antiques and vintage goods. “Here we go.”

Debbie let go of her hand to open the door, and Lou followed her inside, looking around with a curious air that Debbie always found irresistible. A bored-looking, dark-haired woman stood behind the counter, holding a paperback in one hand.

“Dana Seaward,” Debbie said, flashing her a bright smile. “I have an appointment.”

“Oh, yes.” The woman slipped a receipt into her book and turned to the shelves behind the counter, picking up a tray of jewelry that sparkled even in the dim light. “I put together a variety based on what you said. Hopefully some of them will stick.”

“I’m sure they’re perfect.” Debbie held her hand out to Lou again. “Come take a look.”

“What is this?” Lou stepped to her side, blinking at the tray. Rings, all materials and sizes, some with elaborate arrangements of gems, some with single stones, some unadorned. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing sneaky, for once.” Debbie leaned her hip against the counter and smiled at her. “I was going to pick one out for you, and give it to you over breakfast, but I realized the best thing I could do for _you_ is let you pick out your own. You have to pick one out for me, though. I don’t want to choose my own engagement ring.”

“Engage—” Lou stared at her. “That’s just a little presumptuous, isn’t it?”

“No, because I’m going to do the proposing.” Debbie gestured at the tray. “Just as soon as you pick something, so hurry up.”

“You’re terrible at this.” Lou studied the tray of rings for a moment, her eyes narrowing. This was another one of Debbie’s favorites among Lou’s faces: evaluating a situation, casing a joint, mentally adding up the total of a score. 

“Well,” Lou said after a moment, “this one is obviously for you.” She picked up a delicate gold band with a massive diamond set on it, surrounded by smaller stones forming a rainbow of colors around it. “Yes, absolutely.” She set it on a second tray that the saleswoman produced from under the counter.

Debbie was grinning, her hands shoved deep in her pockets, feeling the heat of a blush rising in her cheeks. “Okay, okay, but pick out yours, now.”

“I’m looking, be patient.” Lou ran her fingers slowly through the contents of the tray, studying each ring on its own, even the ones that were obviously wrong at first glance. It paid to be thorough, to take your time. That was something they had learned together, over the years. And maybe she was putting on a _little_ bit of a show for Debbie—to Debbie’s full appreciation. This was one of the things she loved about Lou. Lou really _got_ her. 

In the end, there was only ever one choice. Lou deftly picked up a dark, matte-finished titanium band with no stones, just a lightly etched geometric pattern marking its surface. “This one.”

Debbie’s smile got even wider. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” Lou placed it carefully next to the wildly bright ring in the second tray. “It speaks to me.”

“Perfect.” Debbie turned to the saleswoman. “Could you help us get these sized and paid for, please? We need to get engaged on the lakefront at sunset, and I don’t want to be late.”

**

“I’m not sure how I would have felt about a really dramatic public proposal,” Lou said, pausing to take a slow sip of champagne and admire how Debbie’s ring flashed in the candlelight. “But you walked the line on that well. Kept it low-key and discreet without seeming deliberately hidden.”

“Well, I’m very good at what I do.” Debbie was still beaming, and admiring her ring as much as Lou was. “And I know you well enough to know that you didn’t want anything dramatic. Besides, who likes big speeches? Neither of us. If we wanted a speech, we would’ve brought someone else along.”

Lou cocked her head. “Who, though? I don’t think any of the girls we know like to make speeches.” 

“Good point.” Debbie took another drink. “I was probably thinking about Danny.”

Lou raised an eyebrow, waiting, but Debbie didn’t take the bait. Neither of them were going to let Danny ruin their engagement evening in the way that only he could ruin putting rings on each other’s fingers on a balcony overlooking the lake, sharing a kiss, and then going inside for bottomless champagne and the best steaks in Chicago.

“I’ve seen him twice,” Debbie said finally. “He’s not as good as he thinks he is. When he’s ready to stop playing dead, I’ll let him, and then I’ll beat the crap out of him. It’ll be fun.”

“Don’t wait on my account.”

“Eh. He has to stand up with me at the wedding. If he tries to stall his way out of that, I’ll speed things up.” Debbie smiled and raised her champagne flute. “But enough about all that. Toast me.”

Lou obediently lifted her own glass. “What are we toasting to?”

“To us.” Debbie’s smile broke into a grin. “To us in thirty years, running bingo scams in the nursing home. To us next year in Monaco. To us getting married on motorcycles. To us later tonight back at the hotel. To us, Lou. Forever.”

It didn’t get any better than that.


End file.
